Самоучка из Испании превратила хлеб и керамику в сенсацию Лондонской недели моды

It sounds like the premise of a fairy tale: A young man, raised in rural Spain by a baker father and a mother who pursued ceramics and crochet, moves to London and finds work as a florist. While there, he channels his love of all things floral and craft-driven into fanciful, almost unreal creations—a Delft vase-turned-corset; a cagelike piece with shelves holding dollhouse-size vases; a canvas gown hand-painted with a floral still life that could have been torn from the walls of a museum. It’s as if he’s anointed everyday items with a magic wand, turning them into fantastical garments. Victorian-era pipes salvaged from the Thames are transformed into a breastplate-like top, while mosaic pieces coalesce into a wearable still life. He labors over them at night and on weekends. Then he puts them all on the runway, becoming the surprise sensation of London Fashion Week. As unlikely as it sounds, all of the above really happened to Daniel del Valle. Sitting in his London apartment, he explains that he has always been creative. “When I was a kid, I didn’t want to play football. I was doing drawings and puzzles and things like that.” He appreciated his family’s immersion in craft, especially his father’s baking. “I think that’s why now I really pay attention to those small details of how things have been made—and how intricate it is to make something that doesn’t look like it’s a lot of work.” Del Valle is one of a cohort of young designers pushing back against the sameness of our aesthetic landscape with maximalist, attention-getting work. Unlike many of those designers, he is completely self-taught. “If I’m interested in, for example, mosaics, I will look at 2,000 different images of mosaics,” he says. “I will do some tests, I will do some trials, until I understand the technique.” Still, he has one great love. “Flowers are my biggest obsession,” he says. “I have a collection of, like, 50 different orchids.” (He has since left his day job, though: “Now I’m 100 percent focused on my brand.”) Each piece in his show was a reflection of himself in some way, which is why he titled the collection “The Narcissist.” He was surprised by the reaction, which included a flurry of texts from industry insiders and a finalist nod from the LVMH Prize. He’s been approached by celebrities about custom work, though he says he will not be re-creating his runway pieces: “It will be something completely different.” He is also taking his time with his next collection, contemplating a detour into furniture for now before returning to the runway. His most prized pieces from this collection were the most personal ones. His father’s profession led to a shirt made out of actual bread from his bakery, while his mother’s ceramics work inspired several pieces. “My dad is from a little village in Seville. He doesn’t really know anything about fashion or art or anything like that,” he says. “So imagine how good it was: Me in his bakery, like, ‘Dad, we’re doing this.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’” This story appears in the September 2026 issue of ELLE.